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the guise of his ministerial or professorial cloak to mislead people into believing he's something other than a politician. And I don't know how I can defend that.

You mentioned that the only two practicing politicians that got involved in this then -- black politicians at least -- were Adam and Ray Jones. Where were the others in Harlem at the time? (crosstalk) Where was Percy Sutton for example at that point?

Why do you ask questions like that? I guess because you're a good interviewer.

Playing it safe. Well, why should they do anything other than that?

They stayed out of it, then.

By the way, I should be fair --not only the politicians played it safe. The social workers, you know, the heads of agencies -- of course. They could see what the realities were. Civil rights leaders. Which is to say -- what the hell? I should have stayed out of the whole damn thing myself, too. Hindsight.

Why would any reasonably intelligent person, seeking to harness and increase what little power he had, identify himself with a clear no-win position?

And what the realistic people in Harlem were saying -- at that time including some of my own staff -- was to assess the pluses and minuses of why they should identify with where they saw the greater pluses. (Note: maybe incorrect, siren covers...EE)